Communication systems are known to support wireless and wire lined communications between wireless and/or wire lined communication devices. Such communication systems range from national and/or international cellular telephone systems to the Internet to point-to-point in-home wireless networks. Each type of communication system is constructed, and hence operates, in accordance with one or more communication standards. For instance, wireless communication systems may operate in accordance with one or more standards including, but not limited to, IEEE 802.11, Bluetooth, advanced mobile phone services (AMPS), digital AMPS, global system for mobile communications (GSM), code division multiple access (CDMA), local multi-point distribution systems (LMDS), multi-channel-multi-point distribution systems (MMDS), and/or variations thereof.
Depending on the type of wireless communication system, a wireless communication device, such as a cellular telephone, two-way radio, personal digital assistant (PDA), personal computer (PC), laptop computer, home entertainment equipment, et cetera communicates directly or indirectly with other wireless communication devices. For direct communications (also known as point-to-point communications), the participating wireless communication devices tune their receivers and transmitters to the same channel or channels (e.g., one of the plurality of radio frequency (RF) carriers of the wireless communication system) and communicate over that channel(s). For indirect wireless communications, each wireless communication device communicates directly with an associated base station (e.g., for cellular services) and/or an associated access point (e.g., for an in-home or in-building wireless network) via an assigned channel. To complete a communication connection between the wireless communication devices, the associated base stations and/or associated access points communicate with each other directly, via a system controller, via the public switch telephone network, via the internet, and/or via some other wide area network.
For each wireless communication device to participate in wireless communications, it includes a built-in radio transceiver (i.e., receiver and transmitter) or is coupled to an associated radio transceiver (e.g., a station for in-home and/or in-building wireless communication networks, RF modem, etc.). As is known, the receiver receives RF signals, removes the RF carrier frequency from the RF signals via one or more intermediate frequency (IF) stages to produce analog baseband signals, converts the analog low IF signals into digital low IF signals, and demodulates the digital baseband signals in accordance with a particular wireless communication standard to recapture the transmitted data.
As is also known, the transmitter modulates data in accordance with a particular wireless communication standard to produce digital baseband signals. The transmitter converts the digital baseband signals into analog baseband signals, which are mixed with one or more local oscillations to produce RF signals. The RF signals are amplified by a power amplifier and filtered prior to transmission via an antenna. To ensure proper antenna coupling, an impedance matching circuit is positioned in series between the power amplifier and the antenna. Because the impedance matching circuit is positioned in series, its losses directly impact the efficiency of the transmitter.
To minimize the losses of impedance matching circuits, off-chip components are used instead of lossier on-chip components. However, the use of off-chip components is in direct contrast with current wireless communication demands for greater component integration to improve performance, reduce size, reduce power consumption, and reduce costs.
Therefore, a need exists for a relatively lossless power amplifier and impedance matching circuit implementation for radio frequency integrated circuits.